Dragic is quite sticky fingered as well. I used to get so frusturated that he would never make the simple ball ahead passes that Lowry does. I don't like the fit with him and Harden...
The question is what you are trying to achieve-- what you define as "success." Are you trying to just make sure that each player gets as many touches as he wants and feels like he gets to use all of his skill set? Or do you measure success by how much you increase the points that your entire team score per possession and your team's chance to win a title? If you want to pursue the former, then by all means surround Harden and Howard with just player who are talented shooters and garbage men who don't do much with the ball in their hands and are happy just to space the floor, defend and rebound. This is more or less what we have right now. Guys seem pretty happy with their roles playing off of Harden and Howard and can't do too much with more offensive responsibilities anyway. But we are ranked 20th in points scored per possession and Harden himself is handling more touches than ever while being less efficient than he was last season. If you want the latter, then you try to get players who are not only good at shooting, defending and rebounding, but also can create off the dribble or in the post. It's good to have the ability and the threat of dribble drive even when a player isn't actually handling the ball and driving. Having multiple creators gives you more options to exploit matchups and rest players. Having a guy who can both drive and shoot (and pass) also allow you to attack against closeouts and create better scoring opportunities. This is why title teams see guys who are capable of doing more "making sacrifices" by taking roles that don't necessarily use their entire skill sets or maximize their personal stats. The Spurs' top guys are sacrificing touches and minutes. Chris Bosh did it for Miami, too. Garnett, Allen and Pierce also saw their personal stats go down when they got together and won the title. Even last season's Rockets was great offensively both in the regular season (4th out of 30 teams) and even in the Portland series (just didn't defend well enough). It was useful having extra guys who are threats to drive the ball and either finish or dish, even if these guys feel like they were not getting as many touches as they wanted. The one situation where you don't want too many guys who want the ball is where guys are unwilling to make sacrifices and play within the team concept. This is kind of happening with Lance Stephenson. But I hardly think that Dragic (and Harden) would be that way.
One huge advantage of getting Dragic is his ability to finish at the rim. With Dwight getting the other team's bigs in foul trouble, Dragic would have a easy time in the paint. I'm still not sure he is the perfect fit. He has really regressed from not being the primary ball handler on the floor. I only know a few great fits and they are all on winning teams. One name that i don't hear about is Khris Middleton, not because he hit a buzzer beater tonight, but because he is one of the best stretch 4's in the league.
I think when Dragic/Lowry played (that was our best backcourt tandem) Lowey had the ball and Dragic spotted up/slashed...
Idk he didn't seem too good playing against us. And its funny that you wrote this on the night he made the game winner.
Last season we really needed a stretch 4, so I looked up which 4 had the highest three point percentage. At the time, it was Middleton shooting around 40%. He was also on a bad team. Now he is on a team poised to make the playoffs, so he would be tougher to pry away.
Bosh is a chameleon though, he managed to switch his game around and still have a good win production, dropped his high usage, played further out, shot more jumpers, played whatever defense was needed, and he did it all at a high level, and he really didn't get any credit for it. Whilst Dragic may be cool personality wise, player wise, he's a system guy, a Deron Williams lite per se, looks great in the right system (not as good as Deron did) and kinda average outside it, and his system is basically, high usage, heavy pick and roll, super high tempo, stretch 4 (preferably named after a way of cooking meat), add to that, that like harden, being left handed, he works best on the right wing, he's not going to b**** and moan, he's just not going to be that good playing in the Hardwightverse, and that's what our offense is. Your 3rd guy just can not be a system guy, unless that system is what you run, because the system is going to be tailored to 1 and 1a, we don't. The whole 12-15 minutes thing is nice, but teams will pay him for 30+ where we'd get at best 15 good? +15 not so good, there are much better ways to improve than that (there's a guy on his own team, that's also a good defender, who they'd be absolutely insane to part with).
What "much better ways to improve" are there? I'd love to hear them. This Rockets team is overly reliant on Harden, almost too much. Seriously, look at the splits: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2015/on-off/ The Rocket's biggest weakness right now is a ball handler when Harden is off the court, and even when he is on the court in limited doses. If we want Harden to have a long healthy career, he can't keep playing him 40 minutes a night at 30%+ usage. Beverley ISN'T that guy and never will be. Maybe Cannan becomes that guy down the road, but if we want to win a ring soon, we need a vet and Dragic fits the bill. Harden is a great teammate. He is unselfish and has no problem deferring to other teammates and often refrains from taking shots until the team absolutely needs him too. There is easily 20-30 minutes a night available to that secondary ball handler to do his thing. And the money doesn't matter. After our next acquisition, we will be capped out whether it is a 8 million dollar player or a 20 million dollar one. The important thing is too just get that third guy soon, so we can start filling out the roster with exceptions instead of relying on Dleague and vet min guys.
The on/off doesn't mean that much, take a look at Steph Curry's and he even has a decent backup pg in Livingston, it includes a lot about other rotation players. Given how our team plays, medium pace with post ups and currently no stretch 4, Dragic would basically be Lin without the dumb ****, now Lin without the dumb **** is still better than well yeah..., but it's not worth trading much for, like for example if we did a straight trade for Dragic and Dmo, they would get better, we would get worse (especially given that Dwight is probably going to miss games here and there all year even if he "fully" recovers), no thanks to that. The slower you play, the worse he is, the less he has the ball, the worse he is, the less spacing you have, the worse he is. Does he want to be 6th man? There are several point guards who would be better fits, and that's without even talking about the untouchable guys like curry etc, players like teague, bledsoe, and that's just point guards, i think even a cheaper pg (they wouldnt give him up now, but collison comes to mind) and a pf backup that can shoot like ersan would help us more, I'd go in for Taj too and all these guys would likely have a lower price point than Phoenix are floating, plus he's a lousy defender regardless of what the forums resident sociopath is peddling today. And just how capped you are does matter, once you bust that luxury cap and get in the apron, it's over, you're not getting better because almost everything is gone, sign and trades, the real mid level, bi annuals, i just don't want to go exploding into luxury land for a player like Goran (regardless of how much a hard on people have for an ex rocket) anymore than id take Deron Williams if there was a way to magically get him for free. And I have no idea who or what is available obviously, but that goes for Goran too, I'm just not into selling the farm for a Ford.
I see it this way, if another major upgrade is going to happen it'll likely be at the 1, 4, or 3 in that order. Given dmo's play, and what's available on the market the likelihood shifts greater to the 1. Is dragic a rock solid perfect fit? No but there aren't much better ways to improve. We could use our assets to bolster depth but I think you can still do that without using the nop pick. That asset and our other picks/Rookies you use to make a significant upgrade to the starting five. IMO
Rockets biggest need right now is a 4 or 5 who can shoot the ball and make FT's at a reliable rate. If we get one, we will be a complete team.
I'll get slammed for it but Jason smith and Calderon (I mentioned yeaterday) from the Knicks. Although both are negatives on d. Morey will never do it but I think both would work
Aleron, I'm curious what pg's you think are available that would be a better fit and what would it take to get them. Conversely how much do you think it takes to get dragic from PHX? You also mentioned Taj, does that mean you'd see a bigger upgrade to the team going from Dmo to taj than you would Bev to dragic?
I don't really know why we are stuck on trading for a point guard with how Beverley and Canaan have been playing so far this season. Bev plays great defense and Canaan can light it up when Harden goes to the bench. Honestly, our starting lineup is already very talented and well balanced as far as offense/defense goes. Beverley (D) Harden (O) Ariza (D) Motiejunas (O) Howard (D) I'm sure many have noticed that our leads seem to collapse when our starters take breathers. It's our bench that needs upgrades the most. While I think we are fairly well set at PG, we still don't have a solid backup for Harden. Canaan/Terry/Johnson have shown flashes but I'm not sure it's consistent enough on the defensive end to spell Harden for big minutes. At least there aren't too many star shooting guards we'll have to face up against besides Klay Thompson (I think OKC knocks them out in the first round). And by the way, we really need to stop relying on our MVP so much. He's going to burn out and/or get injured eventually at this rate. Daniels seems to be the odd man out here. We could use another SF to replace Garcia. Dude just isn't cutting it at all. KPap has been great but when he's out Ariza seems to play even worse. I read somewhere Ariza has played more minutes than anyone in the NBA this season so far. That has to change. Rockets still don't have a lockdown PF to slow down the Aldridges/Nowitzkis/Griffins (ADavis probably wont make the playoffs) of the West. We have yet to play Portland this season so maybe this new-and-improved DMo can take on that task with his length but it remains to be seen. Also it seems like the Rockets haven't beaten the Clippers in a long time. No one seems to really know what TJones' timetable looks like or how well he will even look when he gets back. With how the Rockets move to a smallball lineup so often, I think addressing the 4 position is more efficient than finding a true backup for Howard. Finding a good center is apparently ridiculously difficult anyway. Of the best rim protectors in the league right now, the easiest to acquire would probably be Dalembert, and his motor is questionable. If Morey can get something significantly better than Dorsey and/or Black without giving up too much, I'm all for it. TLDR: Our starters are amazing and complement each other very well. They, however, play way too many minutes. With so many holes in our bench, we are better off shoring that up with more defensive studs.
If we trade DMo now for Dragic or any guard mentioned, we would be royally screwd. I'm sure everyone is aware of that. Black and Dorsey are good for maybe 10 minutes a game. DMo right now is the 3rd most important player on this team. Without him, we're a 1st round and out team.
The latter I meant, stuff like draft pick, Jones, TE for Gibson (in some sort of multi team blend), I'm looking at it more as a "Howard, Dmo, Gibson" vs "Howard, Dmo, Black/Dorsey???" rotation would be better upgrade than a "Harden, Dragic, Bev" vs "Harden, Bev, Canaan/Terry???. and then if necessary look for some average point guard like Golden State did with Livingston with the MLE or a little trade, it's an easier void to fill (which is probably why morey has flipped point guards so much over the years). As for point guards, i really have no idea, i know there was talk of Teague, but no clue if real, or what was involved, but that's an $8m guy being paid $8m for another 2.75 years, without sounding too Atlantaish, i'd almost think a PF/C like Horford that the team can use with H&H sitting to direct a healthy dose of offense out of the highpost (not just self but team offensive motion), that can spread the floor with Dmo and Dwight (i think he'd cost a lot though) would be the diamond standard with an mle pg that's just kinda steady with his play. Dragic's cost? since Mcdonough comes from that same school as Morey, too much, he's probably as unreasonable as Daryl is, haha
You do realize that both Joe Dorsey and Tarik Black average over 10 minutes a games right? Through the last 10 games Dorsey has been averaging about 17 and Black has been averaging about 17 for the season. Both have made very positive impacts on the team and both have proven to be exceptional good back ups. I'm thinking your theory was dead before you every typed it.
I don't think mchale/morey/h2h trust the point guard rotation if we make a playoff run. A veteran savy guy may be what we need at the point.
Backup ball handler / offense creator is our primary concern as a team. Once Harden sits, our offense takes a dive. D-Mo can play backup 5 when Dwight goes out, he is a good enough defender. While I like the progress in Canaan and he may be the answer in the future, he is not someone you can trust come playoff time.
Well, come playoff time, I assume Harden will be playing big minutes again. He's the primary ballhandler in our offense. What point guard aside from Beverley would complement him best? Is Jason Terry really that bad as a backup PG? Sure he's a bit older but he is a veteran and still brings offense to the table. Maybe a backup defensive PG/SG to slide in next to Jet is an option here. I'm no Morey but is bringing in a Dragic type player on trade really the answer? Can he coexist in the starting lineup with Harden? Is he a better defender than Beverley? If he isn't the clear starter he signs elsewhere in the offseason and the assets we gave up evaporate. This also means we have to pay both the new PG and Beverley starting-level salary to keep them both, since we know Bev is gonna get paid this offseason.
